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Off and racing. Maybe?

The past few days have passed by in an incredible blur. Don’t read anything into that though, I’m pretty sure it’s just because I’m coming down off 24 days of FSH injections and my brain has turned to porridge.

On Friday morning I went back to see Doctor B and had another scan. My follicle was still in tact, and a healthy 18.7mm. I really couldn’t believe the little bugger had managed to do exactly what it was supposed to do, and hold off on rupturing until it was big enough for the egg inside to be considered pregnancy viable. My body never does what it is supposed to. My body is highly skilled at doing exactly what it isn’t supposed to do.

Doctor B was also extremely impressed with my endometrium, which apparently couldn’t get any healthier or better looking. In fact, she told me she was just as surprised as I was at how good everything was looking. I’m really not accustomed to good news like that and didn’t know what to think.

We then looked over my most recent blood test results, which saw my LH levels were rising but I wasn’t quite surging yet. She predicted I would begin the surge that day, and ovulate the following day. Just to be sure, I was told to have another blood draw that morning.

“What do you make of all this?” I asked the doctor, desperately needing clarity, and someone in a position of authority to tell me straight that I shouldn’t get my hopes up.

“You know Sadie sometimes these things just happen and modern medicine can’t explain them.” she said with a shrug. “To be honest, everything is just coming together this cycle. Your follicle looks perfect, your uterus looks perfect, your hormones are finally doing what they should. I really would be shocked if you didn’t end up pregnant in a few weeks.”

As sweet and amazing and hopeful that all sounds, let me tell you, it was notsomething I needed to hear.

I’d already had a medical professional tell me something similar earlier in the week. Flo, the head nurse at the clinic, had looked over my blood test results and predicted this would be my “one-in-a-million cycle” that would give me my baby. Hearing my doctor – one of the most respected fertility doctors in the state of Victoria and the director of the whole fertility clinic – tell me that she also predicted I would get pregnant sent my brain racing off into uncontrollable directions.

This was supposed to be a casual punt at pregnancy. My body is very much against me in this – just look at the facts. This is the first time in my entire life I have ever ovulated, I have one blocked tube (potentially two), severe endometriosis and adenomyosis as well as hyperprolactinemia. And to top it all off my husband has morphology problems. The chances of this actually working are clearly, based on my medical conditions, extremely extremely extremely low.

I knew that our chances were virtually non-existent when we switched this cycle from IVF to ovulation induction. The plan was always to give this a crack merely to pass the time before our next IVF cycle begins. This was never supposed to be a miracle, or a magic bullet to motherhood. And I understood that. I was calm and rational about it all. I had no expectations. That’s not to say I was completely hopeless and thought we were wasting our time, I was simply excited at the idea of experiencing ovulation and moving in a positive direction towards achieving our dream of having a child.

Instead, I left the doctor’s office on a high, went straight to get my blood drawn, then practically floated into the office to finish off my working week. I had lost control of my thinking. The rational had slipped into irrational. I was going to get pregnant. I knew I was. It was practically a sure thing. The doctor said so! THE DOCTOR SAID SO!

The first insane thing I did was calculate my due date, based on ovulation occurring the following day. 25 April 2014. Anzac day!! How cute would it be to have a little Anzac baby! I thought. I wonder what suitably Aussie names I can come up with…

Then I took the crazy a step further and penned a cute little letter ON BEHALF OF MY CHILD to my parents and Doug’s parents. A surprise I could send in the post once we had our first ultrasound done, accompanying a photo from the scan. I imagined the looks on their faces when they read the letter. Hi Nanna! I’m only a little bean now, but I look forward to meeting you next April!

I received the results of my blood test about 3pm that afternoon from Rebecca, one of the other nurses at the clinic. She’s nice, but not as nice as Flo.

“Hi Sadie,” she said when I answered the phone. “Good news! You’re surging now, so you’ll ovulate tomorrow. You won’t need a trigger shot, your body is doing this the natural way.”

“No no, I understand what to do now!” I cut her off. “I mean what do I do in two weeks? I’m used to doing things the IVF way.”

“Well in two weeks you need to take a pregnancy test…” she said, as if this were obvious, which of course it was.

“And if it’s negative?” I asked, biting my lip.

“Call us straight away and we’ll prepare your medication pack for your next cycle of IVF.” she replied.

“And if it’s positive?” I asked insistently.

“Well…….you’ll be pregnant?”

Oh. Right.

That night, Doug and I attempted another “moon landing” and thankfully we were successful. It was perfect timing. Afterwards I was lying in bed with my hips under two pillows letting gravity help the little swimmers on their way, when I looked over at him and grinned.

“You’re going to be a great daddy.” I cooed.

“Um what?” he asked, gawking at me. “Sadie I don’t think getting so excited about this cycle is a good idea…..”

Nevertheless, I fell asleep with my head filled with happy baby thoughts and my butt still propped up under the pillows. I woke up awkwardly in the same position 9 hours later.

I also woke up to a terrible pulsating pain on my lower left side. It was excruciating and so bad it was sending spirals of pain all the way down my left leg. I could barely stand up. For a few minutes I thought maybe I had appendicitis, the pain was that bad. A quick consultation with Doctor Google told me that when you ovulate there’s a possibility that existing cysts on the ovaries can react badly to the hormone surge and cause a lot of pain. That made sense. I had a lot of cysts, particularly on my left ovary.

I just wasn’t sure if that meant I’d ovulated already, or my LH was still surging and that’s what was causing my cysts to react so strongly. Does the terrible pain come before or after actual ovulation? I’d love to hear from any other PCOS gals who ovulate. When does the bad pain happen for you? I just don’t know if my ovulation happened prior to, during, or after the pain.

Assuming ovulation had taken place, I suggested Doug and I have sex again on Saturday night. We were told to leave it at least 48 hours between each act of intercourse, but if the egg had already been released there was a full stock of Friday night sperm already waiting for the egg, and the Saturday night swimmers would just be a bonus. If we waited another 24 hours, the egg would already be gone and sex would be pointless (other than…for enjoyment…purposes).

I have vaginismus, so sex is usually painful, but what I experienced last night was a whole other world of pain. Every thrust, every movement, every second, it felt like someone was driving a dagger into my left ovary. I honestly thought it was going to kill me. Doug picked up the pain on my face almost straight away and it was all over. He can’t ever enjoy himself even if he possibly suspects I’m hurting (sometimes I’m not and his worries ruin it for both of us, but it’s sweet he’s so caring).

I told Doug not to worry about it, as we’d already done our job the night before. But he didn’t want to leave any doubt in either of our minds that there was anything else we could have done to help the process, so the syringe and I had our third date for the week.

I think I need to send the syringe flowers in the new few days. That’s customary, right? It’s been a while since I’ve been on the dating scene…

Today I have been extremely fatigued most of the day, but as I said before, that’s almost certainly caused by my body detoxing from the FSH. The pain in my ovaries has almost completely gone today, though I have felt a few sharp twinges on both sides. I’m going to assume (probably naively) that I ovulated yesterday. So I guess that makes today 1DPO.

Let the waiting game begin.

UPDATE:I went to the bathroom about an hour after I posted this, and noticed I had a lot of EWCM. I haven’t had a huge amount over the past few days. Does this mean I haven’t ovulated yet??? I’m new to this so I have no idea. Can you still have EWCM the day after ovulation or does it disappear straight away???

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3 thoughts on “Off and racing. Maybe?”

It’s very difficult to not get carried away and prematurely excited, but you can’t have a negative attitude over it or lose hope. I’m hopeful and excited for you, either this cycle or a future one, and can’t wait to hear your result!

I also have PCOS and elevated prolactin levels. I ovulate (somehow), but typically don’t feel any pain at all. Although after I had my D&E, 3 weeks later I had severe pain. I thought it was an infection. I went to the doctors and he confirmed I was ovulating. He said it’s just because my body went through a bit of a shock recently and it’s just doing what it’s suppose to do. Maybe your body just reacted that way too. Not really sure, but I hope this helps. Also, I am hopeful for you and think your timing was great. I wish you luck! 🙂